Bobbing in the sky down the beach was Gia’s pink dragon kite.
“Uh-oh,” Shelley said. “If she’s out flying a kite after this . . .” She swept a hand at the quilt mess in the trash bin. “She must be super upset.”
Shelley was right. Kiteflying was Gia’s happy place, but it was also what she did when she was troubled.
“Do you think something happened between her and—” Madison didn’t get any further because Mike came bounding over the stone wall looking like a thundercloud.
“Super-duper upset,” Shelley muttered.
Mike growled at them as he trod up the steps. “I don’t know what you two did to Gia, but you better go make it right.” His eyes snapped fire. “Now.”
“What bee got into your bonnet?” Shelley asked.
“Gia broke up with me because of you two.” He put his hands on his hips.
Madison had never seen Mike look so fierce or protective. “I thought your engagement was fake.”
“Maybe to her it was, but it was never fake to me.” The tips of his ears flushed with anger. “I was going to ask her to marry me for real when this silliness was over, but she says there’s too much emotional turmoil in her life right now to figure out if her feelings for me are real or not.”
“Did you tell her that your feelings were real?” Madison asked.
“That’s why she gave me this back.” Mike held up his hand with Gia’s engagement ring on his pinkie finger. “When you see her, tell her I’ll be at the kiosk on the boardwalk if she wants to talk.”
“I’ll fix it.” Shelley jumped up and grabbed Madison’s hand. “We’ll fix it.”
“We will?” Madison blinked.
“We will,” Shelley confirmed, dragging Madison down the stairs after her.
“How?”
“I’ll explain when we get there.”
“Explain about what?”
“Go with the flow for once, will you?” Shelley released Madison’s hand and started walking backward toward the beach, the wind whipping her hair around her face like a golden mane.
“I—” Madison started to protest but realized, one, Shelley couldn’t hear in the wind since she’d turned back around and, two, her sister was right. If Madison was working on her tendency to control things, she had to get comfortable with letting others take the lead sometimes.
Okay, maybe comfortable was a strong word. Rephrase. She had to tolerate others taking the lead sometimes.
That already felt more doable.
Besides, it was beautiful watching Shelley be her old self again. Infused with joy and the richness of being imperfectly human.
Could she try that? Not only accept, but embrace her flaws as part and parcel of Madison Clark?
The thought was terrifying.
And yet, wildly exhilarating.
She longed for that girl she used to be. For that innocence she had to leave behind in order to be strong for her younger sisters.
In abandoning her innocent heart, she’d donned a me-against-the-world attitude that had kept her strong but entrenched her in her ways. That attitude no longer served her.
By coming home, she’d learned that true strength, real strength, came from being a part of a community. Her willfulness had hindered her growth.
It had pushed Finn away when she’d needed him most. Had kept her sisters at arm’s length because she was afraid of getting hurt. She had clung to her righteousness and kept punishing Shelley for something that was over and done with. By clinging to her anger, she’d intensified her own pain and kept her family at a distance, when they were the very thing she’d needed in order to heal.
She thought she was the one who’d been wronged, when in reality it was she who’d wronged the people in her life with her rigid, unbending opinions and judgments. She’d denied her own culpability in alienating her family, friends, and lovers.
Uncomfortable with her guilt, she’d projected the blame onto others. Then she’d stuffed down her feelings, closed off her emotions because she considered them a sign of weakness and she hated to show vulnerability.
But inside, she was that tenderhearted, sweet, frightened little girl who’d been forced to don warrior armor to keep herself and her sisters safe twenty long years ago.
Up ahead on the beach, Gia flew her kite.
The pink dragon undulated high in the sky. In her solitary silhouette, Madison saw her youngest sister’s raw pain and thought, I caused this.
Because she’d been so unyielding, so dug into her ways, Gia—the most honest person Madison knew—had been forced to lie.
A lie that affected her relationship with Mike, the man who loved her.
Fix this.
The words rose in Madison’s mind as ironclad as they had